From the back cover of the current paperback:
Shevek, a brilliant physicist,
decides to take action. He will seek answers,
question the unquestionable, and attempt to tear down the walls of hatred
that have isolated his planet of anarchists from the rest of the civilized
universe. To do this dangerous task will mean giving up his family and
possibly his life. Shevek must make the unprecedented journey to the
utopian mother planet ... to challenge the complex structures of life and
living, and ignite the fires of change.

From the back cover of the older Avon paperbacks:
...the spellbinding story of Shevek, a brilliant physicist who single handedly
attempts to re-unite two planet cut off from each other by centuries of
distrust.
Anarres, Shevek's homeland, is a bleak moon
settled by an anarchic utopian civilization; Urras, the mother planet, is
a world very similar to Earth, with is warring nations, great poverty, and
immense wealth. Shevek risks everything in a courageous visit to Urras -
to learn, to teach, to share. But his gift becomes a threat...and in the
profound conflict which ensues, Shevek must re-examine his philosophy of
life.

The two planets Anarres and Urras are moons
of each other, but there is little communication between them. This
book tells of their different societies through the eyes of a
physicist, Shevek. It shows how politics can get entwined with
scientific discovery. Chapters alternate between the story of Shevek's
life on Anarres, and his time on Urras as a guest of Ieu Eun
University.

Shevek's theory of temporal physics, which he
wishes to share with all of humanity, will lead to the invention of
the ansible, a device that permits communication without any time
interval between two points in space, even if the points are light
years apart.

Annares is a dry, marginal world settled by
anarchist followers of Odo who left Urras over a century and a half
ago. The Anarresti have little government, no established religion,
unique computer derived names, a created language, and few
possessions. People are taught to not "egoize" and to
condemn profiteering. Most want nothing to do with Urras. Annares is a
mining colony of Urras.

Urras is a lush, green world, more
like our own. There are a number of
separate countries, some at war. Shevek is in A-Io, which is a
capitalist society where men and
women are unequal in status, and there's a huge gap between the rich
and the poor. The rich are decadently wealthy, and the poor are
unemployed and holding demonstrations.

Our book group has also read the following books by Ursula K. Le Guin:
-- The Lathe of Heaven in July 1994
-- The Left Hand of Darkness in March 1995
--
The Earthsea "trilogy"
in July 1998
--
The Telling
in May 2004Bibliography:
Ursula K. Le Guin
(1929- )is an important US writer of science fiction and fantasy.

Awards
1972
Newbery Honor Book for The Tombs of Atuan
1969 Nebula Award for novel for The Lefthand of Darkness
1970 Hugo Award for novel for The Lefthand of Darkness
1973 Hugo Award for novella "The Word for World is Forest"
1974 Nebula Award for novel for The Dispossessed
1974 Nebula Award for short story "The Day Before the Revolution"
1974 Hugo Award for short story "The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas"
1975 Hugo Award for novel The Dispossessed
1988 Hugo Award for novelette "Buffalo Gals, Won't You Come Out Tonight"
1988 World Fantasy Award for novella "Buffalo Gals, Won't You Come Out Tonight"
1990 Nebula Award for novel Tehanu
1995 Nebula Award for novelette "Solitude"
1995 World Fantasy Award for Life Achievement
1996 Retrospective Tiptree Award for The Left Hand of Darkness
1995 Tiptree Award for "The Matter of Seggri"
1997 Tiptree Award for "Mountain Ways"
2002 World Fantasy Award for novel The Other Wind
2005 PEN Center USA Children's literature award for Gifts

A Wizard of Earthsea
was awarded the Boston Globe Horn Book Award for Excellence in 1969. The Tombs of
Atuan was an Newbery honor book. The Farthest Shore was the National Book Award
Winner for Children's Books in 1973.

Earthsea series
Le Guin's Earthsea fantasy books are A Wizard of
Earthsea (1968), The Tombs of
Atuan (1970), The Farthest
Shore (1972), Tehanu (1990), Tales from Earthsea
(collection of 5 stories, 2001), and The Other Wind
(2001). The novella "Dragonfly" in the anthology Legends
(1998) is a prequel to the novel The Other Wind (2001).

Hainish series
Many of Le Guin's early works
are science fiction set in the Hainish universe, where descendants of people from the
planet Hain inhabit the Galaxy. The series, which spans 2500 years of future
history and features the interstellar Ekemen, includes the books Rocannon's World (1966),
Planet of Exile (1966), City
of Illusions (1967), The Lefthand of Darkness (1969), The
Dispossessed: An Ambiguous Utopia (1974), and The Telling
(2000).

Four Ways to Forgiveness
(1995) is comprised of four Hainish connected novellas. "Vaster than
Empires and More Slow" (1971) and "The Word for World is Forest'
(1972) are other novellas of the Hainish sequence. Six out of the eight
stories in the collection The Birthday of the World and Other Stories (2002,
includes "The Matter of Seggri" and "Solitude") are set in the
Hanish worlds of the Ekumen.

Orsinia booksOrisinan Tales (1976)
and Malafrena (1979) are fantasies set in the 19th century in a
fictional European country.

Other worksThe Lathe of Heaven
(1971) is a classic SF novel of alternate worlds and the problems of playing
God. In it a man's dreams can create alternative realities. The Lathe of Heaven was made into a
PBS made-for-TV movie in 1980 starring Bruce Davison, Kevin Conway, and
Margaret Avery. It was remade in 2002 with James Caan, Lukas Haas, Lisa Bonet, and David
Strathairn. (See the 1980 film - webmaster recommendation).

Always Coming Home (1985) explored the matriarchal society of the Kesh through
prose, verse, drawings, and music.

A Very Long Way from Anywhere Else (1976) is a short young adult
novel. The Beginning Place (1980, also titled Threshold) is a
young adult fantasy in which two adolescents pass through to another world.

The Eye of the Heron (1983) is SF.

The Hugo winning novella "The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas"
(1973) is a tale about the cost of the good life, a moral lesson about the
funding of Utopia.

Lavinia (2008) is a novel set in ancient Italy based on character in The Aeneid.

Le Guin has also written number
of other works -- essays, poetry, and prose -- including some for children.
This is a incomplete list, a sample of a few of these, there are more. Sixty Odd
(1999) contains 69 poems. Dancing at the Edge of the World (1989) is non-fiction,
essays and reviews. The Catwings series - Catwings (1988), Catwings Return (1989),
Wonderful Alexander and the Catwings (1994), and Jane on Her Own (1999) -
are children's fantasies. Tom Mouse (2002) is a children's picture book.

Short fiction collections
Le Guin's short fiction is
collected in The Wind's Twelve Quarters (1975),
Orisinan Tales (1976), The Compass Rose (1982),
Buffalo Gals and Other Animal Presences
(1987), Searoad: Chronicles of Klatsand (1991, mainstream
stories), A Fisherman of the Inland Sea (1994),
Four Ways to Forgiveness
(1995), Unlocking the
Air and Other Stories (1996), Tales from Earthsea(2001), The Birthday of the World and
Other Stories (2002), and Changing Planes (2003).